it's too late and there's nothing worse than too late
by bobbingformangos
Summary: Prompt, Zelena defeated, Regina is finally dating somebody, Henry remembers her, her feud with Snow stopped. She should be happy, but she isn't, she feels like something is still missing.


it's too late and there's nothing worse than too late.

unedited.

-III

She didn't remember you.

No one did.

It was better that way.

You died honorably but you weren't really dead.

You sucked in a curse and now you were in the in between but it was okay because they were happy. You son had a mother who loved him with her whole heart, one that was now pure thanks to your sacrifice. He was happy and would often look at the woman with a large, floppy smile that was similar to yours and giggle with happiness that was light hearted.

It was better that he only remembered his life with her. That he only remembered a childhood following around a mother who loved him without limits. You had fake memories of a little boy who would never leave your side and you like to think that it was only a mirror of the memories that Regina had. That Henry was attached to her, never leaving her side and always had a small fist clutched in her shirt as she carried him around the small town on her hip.

Her little prince, the prince of Storybrooke.

Those memories, the real ones, were what he remembered and he had forgotten you and it didn't hurt as much as you thought because his nose scrunched up and he giggled and he was an awkward teenage boy who still loved his mother in that adorable, momma's boy, kind of way.

Your parents were just as happy as Henry but that hurt because they should always remember the baby that they gave up. They should always remember the kid that lived a horrible life so that she could grow up to save them and they should always remember the sacrifices that she made.

Instead, the kiss hair black as coal and caress a snow white cheek and smile at rosy lips and coo over a tiny little girl who fit into a spot in their heart that was all too easy to fill.

That hurt you in ways that you would never be able to fix, not now, not in this place that you was currently in.

So, instead, you tried to stay away from them. Away from a little girl that they named Ruth Emma, after your father's pure of heart mother, and after a kid that they don't remember giving up and that sacrificed her life to save them all.

Just like they intended for you to do.

And you think of how you even sacrificed herself for a woman who caught a wickedness because she was so envious of things she didn't understand.

Zelena didn't remember you but she also didn't remember a life of being unloved. Instead, she knew of a sister that she spent Friday nights with and a nephew who would held her tend a garden and a woman with blonde hair who saw good in her, like you saw the good, except unlike you, Glinda also loved Zelena.

People had family and loves and happiness and you, Emma Swan the savior, sacrificed yourself for it all and no one seemed to remember it.

-III

You sat on Regina's bed, one night, as the woman stood in front of the mirror crying without knowing why. There was a hole in her heart and with the closed door, she cried because of it. The palm of her hand was pressed against the exposed skin above her heart, hard and rough, but she didn't dare take out her heart again.

Instead, she pressed her hand to it, rubbed at it, and you wondered why it had ached her so much when she had everything to make her happy.

Henry loved her, remembered only her, and giggled with her throughout their days.

And Regina, well you watched her make out with Robin Hood once and realized it was the most disgusting thing ever and you absolutely abhorred it but you were also happy that she was happy.

Regina deserved this and it was the love you had for her that saved everyone in the end.

You think, as you lean back on your elbows on the soft duvet, about when you realized that you loved her but you can't pinpoint the exact moment. Instead, you remember little moments that built up to this explosion. They were like lights in your memory, shining bright and making your heart beat wildly, and you knew that this love you had for the other woman was something the universe was never ready for.

Maybe that's why it was so powerful.

Maybe that's why it saved everyone.

Maybe that was why the explosion stopped the stars from moving and the earth from rotating and the many, many other worlds to stop for moments, as fate rethreaded the tapestry and rewrote history and everyone was saved because you had written yourself out of this world and all others in trade for everyone's happiness.

It never made sense, these things, but you did that and you made that sacrifice and now you watched as Regina pressed against her heart and you wonder if maybe it was missing something important.

But that was a fleeting throughout and you watch her shake her head of something and smile before turning and leaving the room to kiss your son goodnight once more.

Because, for some reason, Regina needed to reassure the kid and herself over and over again that it was there and would always be her little prince and she loved him with all of her aching heart.

-III

It was only fitting that you saved the world with a kiss of love. True love, you have no idea. Actually, that title felt trivial and didn't even come close to being the truth of what it was. It was celestial and fate changing and pure. It was Pure Love and that seems like something a little better than True Love.

You knew it didn't matter though, no one remembered it.

No one remembered you.

-III

You watch them one night.

You watched the way he made her face light up and how they sat on a quilt in the park watching Henry chase after Roland and they looked like a family.

No, you could admit that. They looked like a family and there was a happiness in the air and you helped that.

Somewhere inside of you, you could admit that you were happy to see them happy, but that hurt too much.

So, instead, you sat on a branch in a tree near them and watched as your son chased happily after the gangly little boy and sometimes, he would look back at Regina with a nose crinkle, and you smiled at that. Because, he really could be hers. He really, really could and you wondered in this rewrite if you gave that to her.

It confused you and you didn't try to piece it all together, not really, because if anyone did, they would realize there was a gaping hole in the tapestry, but you bet that you gave her that happiness too.

There was a time she gave you and your son the world, her happiness, and it seemed fitting that you would only do the same.

-III

The loneliness settles in after a while.

It causes you to cry a lot and hide away in their home.

Sometimes you hide in the clock tower and other times you hide away in the back booth at grannies and sometimes you curl up next to your son and hold him in his sleep and you whisper things to him.

You like to believe that he hears you, hears your love for him, but you also hope that he doesn't because he shouldn't remember you.

So, you carry your loneliness next to your love for these people, and continue on throughout your days.

-III

Life is often unfair and sometimes, happiness isn't guaranteed, and you notice that as time slides through your hands.

It happens one night when your sister, the replacement, goes to sleep and forgets to breathe and doesn't wake up.

It was her death that triggers an unraveling for them.

A slight madness.

A memory of loosing another baby, they think, but can't pinpoint it.

The world isn't fair but it also is fair and she slides away into another world peacefully, you kiss her black hair as she passes through the in between before moving onto a brighter world, one that she was destined to go to, no matter how many times you would rewrite history.

Her path was always that.

-III

You held your mother that night because you finally forgave her for wanting to replace you and because you knew what it was like to loose a child.

She lost two of them.

And only just realized it.

And you didn't want her to remember you because you knew it would hurt her.

But it was only fitting that your mother, the woman who knew you for ten months as you lived inside her, would remember you first.

-III

Her fist slammed against her heart as she stood in the ocean, the water up to her knees and you noticed how the water made the blue dress turn darker.

Regina had tears in her eyes and she kept beating at her chest, trying to restart her heart, because there was a hole that she murmured about and you wondered if your sister's death hurt her as much as it had hurt the whole town.

But there was a hole there and she kept murmuring about it and, to you, there was an intense beauty about seeing Regina Mills lose on the edge of the ocean.

So, you took a seat in the water with your knees to your chest and watched as a former Queen dropped to her knees in the crushing waves and cried out for something that caused her heart to ache.

Surely, it wasn't you.

-III

Henry remembered you second.

That, too, was very fitting, because he had spent ten months and eight days inside of you and knew the sound of your heart beat and the wavelengths of your voice and he needed to remember you in that exact moment.

He was sitting in the sand where the old castle used to be and the book was in his lap, the book that had disappeared after you saved everyone, and you noticed, like before, some parts were rewritten.

And when you took a seat next to him, he turned the page to the story about the princess who rewrote the heavens and he leaned into you, causing you to sigh at the first real human contact you had in nearly a year, and he whispered, "Ma, look at this one."

Because apparently you were "Ma" now and, just like before, he was so eager to show you stories in a book.

And just like before, the ending was ripped out.

And you wondered if that was his doing.

-III

Your mother and Henry start to find you when you are lonely and you don't cry alone anymore.

Sometimes, they can even see pieces of you, as if you are a mirage.

You think its beautiful that its them who see you first.

You think its beautiful that you are enough, even in the in between, for them.

You've only ever wanted to be enough for them.

-III

"I know you are there," Regina whispers in the darkness. She had the blankets clutched in her hands and she is curled up in the middle of her bed and the window is open to let in the Spring air and you are there, next to her, curled up and facing her because you couldn't stay away tonight.

Not tonight.

Not when the universe is continuing to move despite, a year ago, you had paused it and learned how to reweave history.

And you were sure the stars were shooting through the sky like your heart was shooting through your body and her eyes were closed but you wondered if she opened them if she would finally see you.

If there was a curtain that was lifted on a special night like tonight.

She was tired and her voice was laced with sleep as she reached out a hand to rest in front of you, "I can feel you."

And for moments, you wonder if you were able to truly feel her.

Did she remember you?

Was the the next one to remember you?

Her name falls from your lips louder than you intend but the way her eyes pop open makes bees buzz in your stomach and her eyes are suddenly searching in the dark. So you say her name again, breathy, needy, because its Regina and you believe that despite happy picnics and dinners and times with a many who was supposedly meant for her, she was missing something and she knew it.

She searches for you and her hand moves around the bed, in front of you, trying to grasp you, but can't find you and it causes her to cry because she can hear you and she can feel you and its the frustration of loosing something so important and knowing its there but simply unable to find it.

-III

She doesn't sleep the entire night and the sun shines into the bedroom and illuminates the circles under her red eyes and you smile at how her hair is wild and longer and you want to run your hand through it.

But you don't and you hold your breath when her eyes stop searching and lands on your green eyes.

Regina remembered you third and she gave the smallest hint of a smile when she breathed out, "Miss Swan."

-III

This is how you fix everything that was ever rewritten.

It started with a kiss, so it was only fitting it would end with a kiss.

Regina is hot against your skin and you only realize then that you haven't felt things to this intensity since you sacrificed yourself. Her hands are gasping at the skin on your chest, clawing for your heart, to make sure it was beating in the way that her's was.

And it was beating.

It was beating and thumping and you were surprised at the sigh that escaped her lips.

"There you are," she murmured, sighing in relief and in hope and in love and in completion. So she whispered again, having one of her hands bring your hand up to her heart, "There you are."

And you now know why she had beat at her heart and why she had said that it wasn't whole and you finally understood that she, too, loved you and was missing something this whole time.

Regina Mills was missing Emma Swan and at some point in history, the two of you became so intertwined that she couldn't even be whole without you.

It wasn't romantic and it made you sad for a moment because that's all you ever wanted, for her to be whole, but at the same time, you were happy that she loved you as much as you loved her.

So, you nodded and smiled softly and whispered, "Here I am."

When your lips touch her's, you don't shimmer anymore. Instead, you become whole once again and you wonder what kind of metaphor is this, because she grasps onto you, desperate, and doesn't let go as her mouth presses into your own. There isn't any rainbow or bright light or anything of that matter. This wasn't a curse that needed to be fixed. Oh no, this was something deeper than that and one day, you guys would be able to truly understand it.

But right now it didn't matter.

Happiness or unhappiness, it doesn't matter.

Right now, this is just right.

It goes without saying that it's never too late to find your ending.


End file.
